Our framing of existential threats is good in this context---forges new collective identities to counter nationalism and global crisis

Yet that is not our inescapable destiny. We can still push forward with a truly global agenda, going beyond mere trade agreements, and stressing the loyalty all humans should owe to our species and our planet. Identities are forged through crisis. Humankind now faces the triple crisis of nuclear war, climate change and technological disruption. Unless humans realise their common predicament and make common cause, they are unlikely to survive this crisis. Just as in the previous century total industrial war forged “a nation” out of many disparate groups, so in the 21st century the existential global crisis might forge a human collective out of disparate nations.

Creating a mass global identity need not prove to be an impossible mission. After all, feeling loyal to humankind and to planet Earth is not inherently more difficult than feeling loyal to a nation comprising millions of strangers I have never met and numerous provinces I have never visited. Contrary to common wisdom, there is nothing natural about nationalism. It is not rooted in human biology or psychology. True, humans are social animals through and through, with group loyalty imprinted in our genes. However, for millions of years Homo sapiens and its hominid ancestors lived in small intimate communities numbering no more than a few dozen people. Humans therefore easily develop loyalty to small groups such as families, tribes and villages, in which everyone knows everyone else. But it is hardly natural for humans to be loyal to millions of utter strangers.

Such mass loyalties have appeared only in the last few thousand years—yesterday morning, on the timetable of evolution—and they coalesced in order to deal with large scale problems that small tribes could not solve by themselves. In the 21st century we face global problems that even large nations cannot solve by themselves, hence it makes sense to switch at least some of our loyalties to a global identity. Humans naturally feel loyal to 100 relatives and friends they know intimately. It was extremely hard to make humans feel loyal to 100 million strangers they have never met. But nationalism managed to do exactly that. Now all we need to do is make humans feel loyal to 8 billion strangers they have never met. This is a far less daunting task.

It is true that in order to forge collective identities, humans almost always need some threatening common enemy. But we now have three such enemies: nuclear war, climate change and technological disruption. If you can get Americans to close ranks behind you by shouting “the Mexicans will take your jobs!” perhaps you could get Americans and Mexicans to make common cause by shouting “the robots will take your jobs!”.